Gayatri Jai Singh Rathore is the author of the recently published Etude du CERI, “Recycling Regime, Environment and Exclusion of Electronic Scrap Workers in Delhi”. In this thorough study of a little known activity and sector, Gayatri shows both the formalisation of the Indian e-waste sector and how this has created a “recycling regime” that contributes to further exclude the informal labour of scrap workers, essential to the economy. She answers our questions.
How did you come to work on e-waste in Delhi?
My interest in waste goes back to my PhD days. Part of my dissertation focused on municipal waste management in Jaipur, India, and how waste work physically and metaphorically shaped Muslim neighbourhoods in the old city. This led to a broader interest in waste and waste economies: how waste is produced and managed, the different types of waste, the lives of waste workers, the spaces where waste is handled and how they are embedded in global waste and waste economies.
e-Waste management in India © G. Rathore, January 2023.
Working with e-waste combined two of my research interests: studying Muslim labour and waste. I first came to know about e-waste in Jaipur, which acted as a nodal point for the collection of e-waste. Waste from here regularly travelled to Delhi for processing and trade, so it was natural to follow it to Delhi’s markets. In addition, Delhi allowed me to observe the linkages between electronics manufacturing, repair, refurbishment and second-hand, metal trading and other economies.
What is the specificity of this sector in India?
As in many other cities in the global south, most of the work of dismantling and processing e-waste is done by hand, by small businesses or individual players in the so-called informal or unorganised sector.
However, this sector does not exist in a vacuum. It is closely linked to the formal or authorised recyclers; in fact, the two depend on each other for their functioning. What is specific to Delhi, and particularly to the neighbourhoods in which I conducted my research, is the presence of a caste and kinship group of Maliks (teli: traditionally an oil-pressing community) from the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, who dominate the e-waste sector. However, in other segments, i.e. repair and refurbishment activities or recycling markets in the broader sense, we find actors from different caste and class groups.
e-Waste management in India © G. Rathore, January 2023.
You coin the term “recycling regime”: can you give us a definition of this concept?
I am adopting Zsuzsa Gille’s coinage of “waste regime”, which she developed in the context of the Hungarian waste management system, and using it in the Indian e-waste context, I call it a recycling regime. The term was first used in her work as a macro-social and nationally bounded concept. She looks at how waste unfolds as social relations that determine what counts as waste and what is done with it. In India, the state, NGOs and the electronics industry have brought the e-waste sector under their control through e-waste policies structured around capital-intensive, factory-based recycling, thereby restructuring the e-waste scrap trade. It’s they who determine what recycling is and what recycling work is considered valuable, sidelining the contribution and practices of scrap dealers, locally known as kabadis. Recycling is a socially differentiated activity, depending on how the material is classified—i.e. e-waste or scrap; by whom; and the policies that determine what should be done with it.
Are there any valuable solutions for a more sustainable value chain?
Considering that the e-waste sector in India today allows us to process waste in a systematic way, it would be fruitful to get rid of the formal-informal dichotomy in public policy, i.e. not to see e-waste dealers or kabadis as the informal sector responsible for polluting Indian cities. Instead, we need to consider them as an integral part of recycling activities and design regulations that provide them with employment security and ensure the livelihoods of e-waste workers. Another important dimension is to make regulations realistic, less bureaucratic and to address corruption in the implementation process. In the current scenario, it can take up to a year and a half to obtain an e-waste licence and requires the payment of large bribes that only large recyclers can afford
Can you comment on a specific photo taken during your fieldwork, and give us some material about the fieldwork : when, where, how, why?
Dismantling set-top boxes in Janta Market, Delhi © G. Rathore, January 2023.
This photo shows the everyday manual dismantling of electronic waste and how it is embedded in local and regional economies, spatialities, labour practices and flows of waste. The discarded material, set-top boxes, was purchased in Mumbai by a Muslim e-waste entrepreneur. After the purchase, the entrepreneur transported the consignment by truck to his brother in Janta Market, Delhi, to whom he subcontracted the dismantling work. To store, sort and dismantle the set-top boxes, the brother rented the shop pictured here in his residential building for a month. He also subcontracted the dismantling work to a group of 5 young men, 4 Muslims and one Hindu, aged 18-25. They earn between Rs 400-650 (equivalent to 5-7 euros) per day, depending on their skills and experience. Manual dismantling involves tools such as screwdrivers, hammers and weights. They work in tandem, first cutting the wires from the set-top box, then opening the boxes with an electric screwdriver to separate the circuit board and the iron casing. The resulting material (cables, iron cases, circuit boards) are packed separately in different bags to be sold to different vendors in the wholesale market. The cables are sold as is to other scrap dealers who specialise in stripping cables to extract the copper; the iron and aluminium are sold daily to a local metal wholesaler; and the PCBs are sold to those who recover precious metals from them or to repair shops to be reused in the repair of other electronic products.
Interview by Miriam Périer, CERI.
Abstract
e-Waste management in India © G. Rathore, January 2023.
In recent years, the Indian e-waste sector has undergone a process of formalisation through the implementation of E-waste Management Rules (2016), leading to the creation of what I call recycling regime. The upper and middle classes, along with NGOs and industry actors, are frontrunners in thinking about e-waste policies. They were prompted by a twofold motive: the desire for a “world-class”, clean, and pollution-free city; and seizing business opportunities by extracting value from e-waste. Rather than replacing the State, they co-opted the State so that it would legislate to safeguard the environment, and address toxicity and health problems associated with e-waste. Recycling regime relies on formalisation processes embedded in multiple technologies—technicity, capital-intensive facilities, certifications, authorisations, and licences—that work together to exclude the “informal” sector from the e-waste governance system. Recycling technologies act as “technologies of domination” that further contribute to sidelining the “informal” labour of scrap workers or e-kabadis, who as Muslims already find themselves on the margins of society. However, the recycling regime fails to safeguard the environment in the end as e-waste trickles down back to the informal sector via authorised actors.
Mots clés
